Changing Course
by Scarlet Scully
Summary: A continuation of the story of my other fic Unexpected Detours. Han & Leia deal with the events of that story and the events of ESB. Romance, angst, and more. Rated T may change in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**_Changing Course_**

_Summary: A continuation of the story that began with Unexpected Detours, following Han & Leia as they deal with the events of that story and through the events of ESB. Han/Leia of course, angst, romance and all of that great stuff:)_

_If you haven't read Unexpected Detours, I recommend that you do - because I'll take all the readers I can get :) and because it will help you understand what is happening in this story. Oh, and of course, the universe belongs to George, so please don't sue me for borrowing some of his things. I promise I'll give 'em back when I'm done._

_**Chapter One**_

The door closes with a finality and Chewie's howl echoes through the base. Threepio has finally ceased his babbling and the silence that reigns as Chewie's howl fades is suffocating. She can feel the stares of the people around her. She can feel them watching her, trying to determine how she will react. Most of them don't know about the loss that she had suffered on Ord Mantell, but they all know that she has been affected by the events of that trip. That the effects of that trip are still affecting her, even after her physical wounds have healed.

_"How will she react if they don't come back?"_

She can almost hear the question in their minds and she despises it. They will never know the answer to that question, because Han and Luke will return. They will be safe. They will survive. She wasn't sure if she would if they didn't.

Chewie abandoned his post at the Falcon's landing gear and embraced her. She felt the sorrow and failure in his embrace and she tightened her arms around him. Han was his only family and she knew that he felt as lost as she did - maybe more so. After a few moments, he released her and rumbled something that sounded like a question. Her distraught mind had failed to grasp any meaning from his rumblings, but she followed him up the ramp to the Falcon nonetheless.

Chewie set two mugs on the counter in the galley and filled them each with steaming kaffe. Handing her one, he settled at the hologram table. She sat across from him, warming her hands on the mug before her. The silence stretched between them until finally she broke it.

"They have to be okay. They can't..." her voice cracked with emotion. "He can't..."

Chewie growled angrily, interrupting her. She looked at him blankly, frustrated with her inability to understand him still. He repeated his statement, more slowly and she focussed on the sounds.

Don't sound it. Don't sound it. A few more of his words escaped her, but she caught make true at the end. She nodded, offering her agreement with her understanding. He was of the belief that if you spoke of things that might happen, you added strength to their possibility. She wouldn't give voice to her fears.

She sipped from her mug and they continued to sit through their vigil in silence. As she sat, her thoughts drifted to her earlier conversation with Han. How had she let him get her so riled? Why had she? She had been so determined to tell him her feelings. It had been why she had been searching for him earlier. She had been taken aback when she had heard him tell the general that he was leaving and even more so at the harshness of his attitude toward her. She knew that he would never forgive her for what she had done to him - she couldn't even begin to forgive herself. She just couldn't believe that after all that had come between them that it would end like this.

Just this morning she had decided to not include regret in her memories of Han. That she would not let another person leave her life without telling them how she felt. And now she had done just that. Han may be gone from her life forever and she never told him how much he meant to her. And he had practically asked her to do just that.

_"Come on. You want me to stay because of the way you feel about me."_

He had given her the perfect opportunity to tell him the truth. To tell him that she cared about him and that she didn't want him to leave because she was afraid that she would never see him again. That she was afraid for him. She was supposed to tell him that she was sorry that she had lost their baby and that it would never be enough, but at least he would know that she shared his pain in her heart. He had given her the perfect opportunity and she had pushed it away with both hands.

"_Yes. You're a great help to us; you're a natural leader."_

_"No!"_

He had stopped in the hallway then and had pointed his finger in her face. Instead of a wonderful declaration of her feelings for him, their conversation had quickly degenerated into another argument.

_"That"s not it," he had continued. "Come on. Auhh? Come on."_

Again, the perfect opportunity and again, she had thrown it away.

_"You're imagining things."_

_"Am I? Then why are you following me? Afraid I was going to leave without giving you a good-bye kiss?"_

_"I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie."_

Her last words to him. She might have screamed her frustration in that moment if she could have. Her frustration with herself for falling so quickly into the game. For instantly succumbing to her usual defences instead of allowing someone through, worrying instead that she might get hurt. She was already hurting.

_"I can arrange that. You could use a good kiss."_

His echoing shout replayed in her mind. At least his last words to her had been true. She could use a good kiss. Not from Chewie, but from him and she was afraid that she would never feel his lips on hers again.

How could she have let it get this way between them? How could their relationship have grown so much, only to have regressed to the days when they had first met? He was a good man and she loved him and he was going to die in the cold, alone, and never know.

Chewie growled, interrupting her thoughts. Grasping a few isolated words and, with the help of some hand gestures, she understood that he wanted her to go to bed. She glanced at the door to Han's cabin, afraid to enter and longing to at the same time. Her eyes felt heavy and she knew that she should take the Wookie up on his offer. She still wasn't fully recovered from her injuries and she tired easily. She should take this opportunity for sleep; she wanted to be ready to join the search parties when they left in the morning.

Entering the haven of Han's quarters, she changed from her snow gear, donning one of his shirts and the pants he typically wore in the mornings. Crawling beneath the covers, she wrapped herself in his scent and his warmth and finally let the tears that had been threatening all evening fall.

Too soon, she woke to the smell of fresh kaffe brewing and she stretched to chase the sleep from her limbs. She smiled as she inhaled his scent until her mind fully came awake. Han wasn't here. He wasn't in the other room filling a mug for each of them. He was in the harsh cold that was beyond cold of the Hoth night. He was alone and lost or with Luke and lost and she had to find him. She would not let the last words between them be filled with hate.

_Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think. Scarlet._


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two**_

_Summary, disclaimers, etc. are in chapter one. Also, sorry for the tense mix-up in the first couple of paragraphs of Chapter One - I'm not sure how they slipped through, but they did. I'll try to do better this time. And thanks to everyone who has read - and reviewed._

Han shifted his cramped legs with difficulty. There was little room in the temporary shelter that he had hastily assembled and Luke's prone form was presently occupying the bulk of it. The thin layer of ice on his pants cracked with his movement although the sound of it was lost to the raging wind that buffeted the shelter. The snow and then the remnants of the tauntaun had permeated the waterproofing of his snow suit and the small portable heater failed to keep the shivering from his limbs.

Luke moaned into the frigid night, drawing his attention briefly away from the painful cold. If he was suffering the effects of the cold so severely, he could only imagine what it was doing to his young friend and his injuries. He tucked their only blanket more tightly around Luke and shifted the heater closer to his face. The injuries to his face weren't very serious and concerned him little. The pallor of his skin and the bluish tinge to his lips were a completely different matter altogether.

As the night wore on, the painful burning in his legs faded and although he was grateful for the freedom from the pain, he also knew that the absence of pain was not an encouraging sign. Pulling his gloves off, he blew the warm air from inside him into the palms of his hands. His fingertips held a bluish tinge that matched that of Luke's cheeks. Disregarding the discouraging evidence of his own body's reaction to the elements, he cupped his hands around his mouth and blew on them again. He placed his warmed hands on his friend's cheeks and tried not to cringe at the cold he felt there.

His eyelids felt weighted and he struggled against the overwhelming urge to succumb to the peaceful warmth that sleep promised. He knew that if he did, the warmth he would find would be permanent and he wasn't ready for that yet.

Leia's face floated into his mind and he tried not to think about their last conversation. Their last conversations, really. They had always fought and argued in the years that they had known each other, but this was worse than any of those previous arguments. He remembered the gut-wrenching pain when she had calmly told him in the med-centre that there was nothing between them now that Ayrdon was gone. That there had been nothing before him and now that he was gone, there was nothing left. That they had only been together because of him and they didn't have to pretend now that he was gone.

He hadn't been pretending.

He loved her. He loved her more than he loved life itself. He loved her more than he loved their son. He loved her and he would leave her because he loved her. But he hadn't wanted to leave with things the way they were between them.

He knew that she was angry with him - he was angry with himself and his selfishness. It was his selfishness that had caused him to let things drag on so long with Jabba. He had wanted her and to be around her and knew that once he left, he might never see her again. So he had stayed and disregarded the ever-increasing bounty on his head. He was selfish and had stayed to serve that selfish need to be near her. He was selfish and his selfishness had cost them their son.

His eyes burned with unshed tears and he struggled to keep them at bay; they would freeze the moment they graced his cold skin. He shifted closer to Luke and the heater, checking his friend's status again. He needed to make sure that Luke made it; someone had to take care of Leia and he couldn't stick around to do it himself.

The cold anger of her reaction to his leaving had goaded him into starting another argument with her and now their last words had been filled with ire. He didn't know if he preferred the emotionless statement as she had lain in the med-centre bed or the anger-filled words just before he had come to search for Luke.

Neither.

So much had come and gone between them that they should be able to part ways with something more than a few unintended insults. He had so wanted her to take away the pain of her dismissal of their relationship, but instead, he had goaded her into to denying that there ever had been anything between them. Now he was going to freeze to death on this godforsaken ice ball and the last thing he had told her had been that she needed a good kiss. Not that he loved her. Not that he was sorry for all the pain he had caused her. Not even that he needed to kiss her; to hold her and wrap her tightly in his arms just one last time so he could have the memory of their embrace to last him for the rest of his days, no matter how limited they might be.

He gave in to the pull of his eyelids briefly and closed his eyes, finding a vision of her in his bed in his memory banks. He tried to remember the warmth of her body next to him, the feel of her in his arms, the way she fit so perfectly against him. If he was going to freeze to death, he didn't want his last moments to be spent thinking about all of the pain in his life.

The high-pitched whining of the heater's tiny motor woke him from his accidental slumber. The whining faded and with a quiet click, the motor stopped altogether.

"Flenchk!"

The curse word slipped easily from his lips and echoed loudly in the silence of the small shelter. He had forced all of his anger and frustration into that word and enjoyed a brief respite from the dark emotions. Pulling off his gloves, he blew warm air into his palms again, warming his numb fingers before picking up the offending unit. Turning it over in his hands, he examined it, determining the easiest way to gain access to the heater's mechanical components. Using his vibroblade - the closest thing to a tool that he had available to him - he pried the protective covering off. Minutes stretched into nearly an hour as his numbed fingers struggled to repair the broken heater. The task was made more difficult by the fading light of the lantern, a nearly complete absence of tools and the lack of dexterity in his normally dexterous fingers. Finally, the motor shuddered into motion and life-saving heat began to once again emanate from the tiny unit. He placed it next to Luke again and tried to shift closer as well. His legs failed to comply with his request that they move and he glanced at his wrist chrono before replacing his gloves.

"Okay, kid, daylight is just over an hour away." His voice sounded strange to his ears. "Then, I hope they have the speeders ready 'cause I don't think I can carry you back and I really don't want to be near another tauntaun again. The smell of you has been quite enough to last me a lifetime."

_Sorry for the short chapters, but it just seems a fitting place to end. As usual, please feel free to send me your thoughts. I welcome all forms of feedback. Scarlet._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

They had received the news that Han and Luke had been found and Leia paced impatiently in the hanger awaiting the arrival of the two speeders and their precious cargo. The speeder carrying Luke arrived first and she struggled to stand back as the medical personnel lowered him down from the rear cockpit. Once he was safely lying on the stretcher that would bear him to the med-centre, she rushed forward. Her fingers caressed his cold cheek, but his eyes remained closed. A harsh-looking wound slashed across his cheek and beneath his eye and she brushed her fingertips along it carefully, wishing that the simple caress would be enough to heal it.

The commotion increased in the hanger once again and a second speeder landed. Two-one-bee began pushing Luke's stretcher out of the hanger and Leia pressed a kiss against his forehead. The droid left and she turned her attention to the man being helped down from the second speeder. She fought against the emotion that swelled within her as she realized that Han had made it safely home. She wanted to immediately run over and throw her arms around him, but suddenly felt the many eyes that were focused on her - and on him. From a strength borne of years of experience, she reined in the maelstrom and approached the group of men that surrounded the smuggler.

"Captain Solo, it's good to see you back safely." She cringed inwardly at the coldness of her voice. He had spent the night in the cold and didn't need any more from her. She softened her voice intentionally when she continued: "Thank you for finding him."

She clasped her hands behind her back and shifted awkwardly before the group of men that surrounded Han. She was surprised, given the rumours that had surrounded their relationship, that the men remained instead of leaving and giving them a few moments of privacy. There was a shuffle of feet and then one of the men cleared his throat.

"Uh, Princess," Wedge spoke up, "if there isn't anything else, we'll be bringing Captain Solo to the medical centre."

Leia's eyes focused then on Han's tired face, noticing finally the ravages of weather on the tip of his nose and his cheeks. She took in the droop of his eyelids and the determined set of his jaw. Finally, she realized that the men that surrounded him were supporting him and it was their strength combined with his strength of will that was keeping him on his feet.

She was about to mutter an apology when Chewie's excited growl echoed through the hanger. She turned as he dismounted from his tauntaun and rushed over to Han, wrapping him in a fierce hug. The members of the Rogue Squadron had barely moved out of the way in time to prevent themselves from being caught up in the Wookie's strong arms. Leia watched as Chewie bore his friend - his family really - off to the medical bay.

A few hours passed and Leia found herself at Han's bedside. The room was quiet save for the slight hum of the machines that monitored the condition of the man sleeping before her. She had spent the time since she had last seen him hovering as the medical droids had worked on Luke, leaving only after they had assured her that he was expected to make a full recovery after a few days in the bacta tank. She had stayed with Luke because she cared and was worried about him, but also because it had allowed her to avoid Han and the awkwardness that had built up between them. Finally, unable to stare at Luke's floating figure any longer - and unable to deny her need to see him - she had finally come to check on Han. Chewie had been seated at his side when she had arrived, but he had left almost immediately, leaving her alone with the source of so much conflict inside her.

She drank in his peaceful expression as he slept. He already looked so much better than he had when he had arrived and she felt optimistic about his ability to make a full recovery. His charts had indicated that he had suffered from slight hypothermia and that most of his limbs held evidence of frostbite in some degree or another. She knew that, beneath the warming blanket, his legs were wrapped in bacta bandages and in another day or so, there would be little evidence of his battle with the elements on Hoth. That knowledge couldn't prevent the tears that slipped down her cheeks though and it did little to soothe her; not nearly as much as the feeling of his hand in hers did.

Wiping the tears from her face with the edge of her sleeve, she slid her chair closer to his bed. She brushed an errant hair from his forehead and then gave in to the urge to kiss him and pressed her lips gently against his temple.

"Han, I know that everything has changed for us." Her words were barely more than a whisper and she knew that she was a coward for speaking when he couldn't hear her, but felt better for speaking all the same. "I know that we can never go back to the way things were, but I don't want it to end like this for us either. I know that you have to leave and I understand why you have to leave. I know that there is nothing I can say or do to make you stay, but I want you to know that, in spite of everything, I care about you and you have to know that that will never change."

She rose from the chair then. Smoothing the hair from his brow, she bent and kissed his forehead, his cheek and his lips. Finally, she kissed the back of his hand before laying it gently against the mattress.

"Clear skies, Han and may the force be with you."

The door closed with a hiss and a thud. Han finally won his battle against the drugs flowing through his veins and opened his eyes. Inwardly, he cursed the very things that were helping to heal him. He had been trying to open his eyes or speak or do something to let Leia know that he was awake the moment that she had taken his hand. Instead, he had remained in his drug-induced, semi-conscious state and had missed yet another opportunity to apologize to Leia. He fought against the pull of his eyelids for a few valiant moments before finally giving in, accepting that she wasn't coming back.

_Thank you for reading so far. Reviews are more than welcome and greeted fondly. Scarlet._


End file.
